


compass

by kedda



Series: non perdere la fiducia in me [6]
Category: SKAM (Italy)
Genre: Angst, Canon, Friendship, Gen, M/M, S2e6clip1, bus rides, that keeps happening
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-21
Updated: 2018-11-21
Packaged: 2019-08-26 16:32:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16685176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kedda/pseuds/kedda
Summary: When he couldn't figure out which way was up and which was down, Martino had always known Gio would be there.  That Gio was still here, even now, was more than Marti thought he deserved.





	compass

> _And it always follows autumn_
> 
> _No home for the weak_
> 
> _No insurance for your pride_
> 
>  
> 
> _And it always follows autumn._
> 
> \- “Hoarse”, Earl Sweatshirt

The trees towered, twisted and pale, in windswept rows along Gianicolense, their heavy boughs suspended and exposed in the chill air.  All the plane trees in Rome seemed to have lost their leaves overnight and this sudden uncovering threw their forlorn shapes into relief against the white expanse of the sky.  The few leaves that remained quivered in the grip of an internally felt wind; they had put off their fall for a little longer, but they, too, would fall soon.

Martino pulled his jacket tighter around him and attempted to wipe his mind empty of thought and feeling.  The week of avoiding everything and everyone was already paying him back in full. He couldn’t get the snide looks of the boys on the bridge out of his head (one of whom he thought might be Marco Covitti, which was another train of thought he wanted to avoid), and the fact that they were _a block from his home_ could not put a finer point on the fact that if anybody found out what and who he wanted there would be no escape from the contempt that he had only recently been able to forget existed, and as he contemplated the eight hours that extended before him the pressure in his chest increased.  A lifetime separated him from the easy rapport of the classroom; from the tightly packed desks in their corner of 4B and coffee-point, from shared looks, passed notes and whispered jokes. It had all been so easy before, but something important had broken in him that night when he saw Niccolò, when he realized he was truly alone.  The text he’d gotten in Casa Sperimentale had spelled the beginning of the end, but he had been too stupid, too ready to believe and dream to see what it had meant, and life did not hesitate to thrust him mercilessly back into the reality that he had always known and to which he had been accustomed, once. Once upon a time, he had no knowledge that Niccolò even existed and therefore had no idea how it felt to have his feelings reciprocated—that, Martino realized, had been the one upside to nursing a one-sided crush on his hopelessly straight best friend; he never had to take responsibility for making something real.  Now he had this experience with Niccolò that he didn’t know what to do with, an experience that had launched him right out of Normalcy, population Everybody Else. For the first time in his life he had found someone who chose him _back,_ which made the fact that he couldn't hold on to him all the more heartbreaking.  Was it so strange to want someone else, to want to be touched like he mattered?

 _Enough_ , he thought, feeling his gorge rise, _enough_.  Like he hadn’t already spent a week listless and angry.  As he approached to bus stop it occurred to Martino all of a sudden that the boys from the bridge would likely take the same bus in order to go to school, if they were coming from Ponte della Scienza like he had.  Cursing under his breath, Martino searched the faces of the people waiting, relaxing only when he didn’t see them. Small mercies. He fell into line with the other commuters waiting for the bus and focused on holding air in his lungs.   _Is that why you can’t hold your breath?_  He closed his eyes and turned up the volume in his headphones.

He was on his seventh loop of the song when a familiar head of curls settled in front of him.  Martino noticed in passing that Gio had finally broken out the signature jean jacket (signalling the arrival of actual cold weather), and wondered when that had happened.   Martino pulled out his earbuds and hated how uncertain he sounded when they exchanged greetings, the way Gio didn’t make eye contact. Gio was not someone Martino could feel uncertain about; that was a rule that had been codified when they were ten years old.  

( _Don’t we have to prick our fingers?_  Gio, ever the squeamish one, had insisted that spit was fine.   _Besides, blood carries diseases and stuff._  Dramatic elementary students that they were, they had decided to seal the pact at the Colosseum.   _An epic start to an epic bond of brotherhood!_  They’d spit, and completed a complicated series of hand slaps and claps that they could still remember as of this summer when Luca demanded that they show him.)

Gio faced forward and Marti knew that he had to be the one to bridge the distance.

“What’s up?” he managed, cringing internally.  He had the sudden sense memory of elbowing Gio to the ground.  He ruthlessly quashed any other thoughts and waited.

Gio turned in his seat and shrugged.  “Nothing much.” He faced front again.

Martino nodded and turned his head towards the window.  He realized he was still holding his breath, but he couldn’t exhale for some reason.  The silence became oppressive. _Shit_.

“Ah,” Gio was turning around again, this time hooking an arm over the partition.  He finally looked Martino in the eye. “Luchino said Mrs. Ghezzi got sick on Friday during a 5th year class, and she won’t be coming in for the rest of the week.”  Martino could see the hint of a smile around Gio’s mouth and knew that he had been forgiven, and, not the for the first time, was struck by Gio’s steadfastness. Perhaps it was a disservice to his oldest friend, but Gio continued to surprise him.  Elia was reacting in the way that Martino had expected and felt he deserved; but Gio, who had more reason to be frustrated and fed up with Martino than anyone remained inexplicably even-keeled, open and nonaggressive. Moments like these made Martino remember the man he had seen in the boy in front of him, when the happiness he would feel when Gio came over quietly transformed into something else.  This was the person who had always seemed to know what to say and what to do when Martino was upset; Martino now realized that it probably wasn’t so much what Gio said but the fact that his support never wavered that had given such comfort. It seemed that Gio had seen something worth committing to in Martino, and unlike even Martino’s own father, Gio had stayed true.

“If you want,” Gio was saying, and Martino’s attention snapped once again to those blue eyes, “tomorrow we’re meeting at Elia’s and we’ll be making copying notes, the good, serious kind, font size 4.”  Gio smiled and Martino felt the corners of his own mouth turn up in response. Hearing Elia’s name, however, gave him pause. Looking at Gio now, Martino knew that he knew what Martino would ask next.

“Isn’t he pissed at me?”  He barely remembered what Elia’s face had looked like when they’d fought—he was focusing so much on pushing them away that he hadn’t even really seen them at all.  But Elia’s voice rings loud in his head. _Go argue with your mom; or is it your dad this time?_  Elia knew where to cut where it hurt; but Martino had aimed first.  The fear rose in him now again. He smothered it.

Gio hesitated for a moment, and Martino could see the muscle jumping in his jaw when he turned his face to the side.  Martino spared a thought to what must be going through Gio’s mind right then. What did he see? What did he know? Gio took a quick breath and brought his hands together.  Martino braced himself.

“It’s just that we don’t know what’s been up with you, lately,” Gio blurted.

“What’s wrong with me?” Martino repeated, stalling.

“Yeah.”  He fell silent and watched Martino’s face.

Where to even start?  And what should he tell him?  He couldn’t talk about Niccolò for a whole host of reasons, not the least of which being that it still felt too fresh, and he felt too fragile.   What _was_ his problem?  Swallowing, he tried to think of how he could be most truthful. As per usual, his issues seemed to revolve around his family.  His parents weren’t talking anymore, relying on him to be the go between. For whatever unfathomable reason they didn’t want to get a divorce, evidently preferring to subject Martino and his mother to the thousand indignities of being forgotten by his father, who seemed to feel entitled to a do-over after he fucked up the test drive with Martino and his mom.   _Divorce is a very serious thing_ , his father had struggled to say over the phone, having the gall to sound hurt; Martino had been quick to retort, _So is moving in with another woman and her son_.  He was so fucking tired, of Niccolò’s games, of his father’s excuses, of his mother’s anxiety, of feeling angry all the time.  Anger was not a state he sustained easily and it robbed him of his sleep and wore him thin. The earnest look in Gio’s eyes made his chest ache and he remembered the time at the end of last school year when Gio had known the most intimate details of his home life and hadn’t made him feel ashamed or pitiful.  It was with the same steady gaze he fixed on Martino now that he had told Martino that they would get through this together, that he didn’t have to weather it alone.

Martino felt the words accumulate in the back of his throat and he heard himself begin to express some of what he had been feeling up until now, about his father’s new son, about his mother’s instability.  These were things that Gio already knew, and Martino, in an attempt to give him something, anything else, confessed that he couldn’t sleep, that he felt like he was also losing his mind. It came out like an apology, and he hoped that Gio understood what it meant because Martino didn’t think he could directly acknowledge what had happened after the party, not right now.

Gio looked away for a moment before training his eyes on Martino once again.  “Do you want to skip first period to go to the bar? Get a coffee so we can talk for a bit?” he offered, and even as Martino unwillingly declined—he really couldn’t afford to miss any more classes—he felt warm reassurance flow through him.  When all was said and done, Martino knew Gio and Gio knew him, and it was gratifying to know that the distance that Martino had forced between them was something that could be overcome. He could see now that it was the strength and patience of Gio’s kindness that had made Martino fall for him the first time, and he felt a sudden rush of affection for his friend.   He leaned his head against the window and was startled to realize that they were only a few minutes away from school now. He breathed in deep and breathed out again. He just had to make it through the next seven hours. The boys from the bridge came to mind along with the jeering slant of their mouths. Seven hours, he firmly reminded himself.  Just make it through the next seven hours.

**Author's Note:**

> gio: ci—  
> me: *rolls him up in a blanket and carries him over to marti's house* he needs you
> 
> i'll probably edit this later but i just need to let it go for rn
> 
> translation of this scene's dialogue credited to the subbed video provided by the skamsubita team, who are honestly so so incredible. somehow their video files are way higher quality than the video files from _the official Timvision page_. geniuses, all of them. thank you, if you're there.  
>  ~~would you believe me if i told you i spent an hour googling bus routes in rome and still couldn't figure out which bus both gio and marti would take go to school. i'm just pretending that gio was in Portuense for some reason,~~


End file.
